Sebastian Mahecha 3rd 11/29/16 BNW Essay In a world created where everything is under control, being observed, and fake it makes us wonder if government control is causing the failure of a society. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, written in 1931, he introduces to us a description of some type of futuristic world state, in which people are conditioned and manipulated from the birth to death and is meant to be a warning of the danger of dehumanization. Huxley gives us the idea of the misuse of many things like political power, economic control, sciences and, ethical values. In the book, all problems have been eliminated and the people are living in wealth and happiness by eliminating intellectualism, values and individual freedom. …show more content…
Therefore, the state rulers needed a way to control the society and the most powerful method was by conditioning them in many ways. The entire idea of conditioning is to produce a society where people are happy with what they've got and dislike what people in other classes have and one of the ways it is shown in the book is by placing each person into different classes.
Aldous creates and divides the society into 5 diverse castes, making each wear a different color and raised into a manner suitable for their class. "Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly color. I'm so glad I'm a Beta." (27). This society where everyone is placed into their own and separate class achieves a society where nobody gets jealous of anybody and creates a world that runs easily and happily which means the government will be stable and controlled just how it was …show more content…
intended. Since it is easier to control a population that is happy, the government uses physical and mental conditioning to force people to enjoy their work. Every person must adapt to a specific societal role and that way, there are no unhappy citizens, and everyone is happy at their specified job and caste. “And, that is the secret of happiness and virtue – liking what you’ve got to do. All conditioning aims at that. Making people like their inescapable social destiny” (13). The people are conditioned to love their work and believe they are happy and enjoy it because it’s precisely their destiny. In this society, the people are conditioned to love their caste and be fulfilled with that and only that. This, therefore, creates a sense of order among the society. Never do they question who they are and why they are in a certain caste, instead they are happy with who they are and love themselves. In Reflection, conditioning is a major part in this books plot, by keeping the people under control and the government still in power.
The people in the book are conditioned to be happy in their social caste and absorb the words and ideas implanted into their head by the government. This is very like our society now and days in the real life. They say we must go to school and get an education or else you won’t be successful, they say we have to go get a job, they say many things that they want to put in our heads but that’s just a way for them to keep us under control and them in power, and of course when I’m referring to “them and “they” I mean the government. This point that Aldous is making opened my eyes and see what is to come and it is scary how close we are getting to being just like the World State. It really does make me ponder on the idea if it really is the future he is talking about or is it taking place right now but we are just to blind to see what is
happening.
Christian Nestell Bovee, a famous epigrammatic New York writer, once said, “No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities.” This quote ties in wonderfully with the book Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and the concept of control. In the novel Brave New World, Aldous Huxley captured the true essences of a perfect dystopia. With people living seamless happy lives, and not knowing they are being controlled. How does one control entire nation? The World State does this by hatching, conditioning, and a synthetic drug called soma.
Examining Aldous Huxley’s View on Government Control “Science and technology provide the means for controlling the lives of citizens” (Brave). This quote describes a major and ever-growing problem in the basic, daily lives of society now, and has been since the mid-twentieth century. With technology, medicine, and general knowledge evolving so rapidly, it is hard to find a constant code by which governments can carry out their purpose of regulating societies. In some cases, organization is taken to an extreme level that chokes out creativity and individuality while replacing it with codes and stern punishments (Huxley). On the other end of the spectrum, liberalism can flourish in an atmosphere of prosperity and freedom, but not for very long (Huxley).
In his novel Brave New World, Aldous Huxley illustrates ways in which government and advanced science control society. Through actual visualization of this Utopian society, the reader is able to see how this state affects Huxley’s characters. Throughout the book, the author deals with many different aspects of control. Whether it is of his subjects’ feelings and emotions or of the society’s restraint of population growth, Huxley depicts government’s and science’s role in the brave new world of tomorrow.
Imagine a society in which its citizens have forfeited all personal liberties for government protection and stability; Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, explores a civilization in which this hypothetical has become reality. The inevitable trade-off of citizens’ freedoms for government protection traditionally follows periods of war and terror. The voluntary degradation of the citizens’ rights begins with small, benign steps to full, totalitarian control. Major methods for government control and censorship are political, religious, economic, and moral avenues. Huxley’s Brave New World provides a prophetic glimpse of government censorship and control through technology; the citizens of the World State mimic those of the real world by trading their personal liberties for safety and stability, suggesting that a society similar to Huxley’s could exist outside the realm of dystopian science fiction.
The world was in utter shambles when Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World. It was the middle of the depression, unemployment was high and the stock market low. It was the age of sterilizing the mentally ill, and the age of mass manufacturing by machines. Scientific progress was on the rise, and Henry Ford was considered a savior. Huxley's imaginary world of scientific perfection was far from perfect. The texture of his imaginary world is nearer to nightmare that to heaven on earth (Watts 72). In creating the prophecy, New World State, scientific evolution, in trying to create a superior society, is only as perfect as its' creator.
This world of dystopia is not far away from the society of today, because it is in human nature (Kass 1). The world is evolving into the world depicted by Huxley in Brave New World. The “‘conditioning aims at making people like their inescapable social destiny’” (Huxley 17). The government first started with the taking away of freedom from the people in the world. Although we are not at a point where even our social class and jobs are determined by the government, the elements are shown throughout society today. The ideas Huxley took on the future of Earth are slowly becoming a reality today. The advancements in cloning, the conditioning in advertizing, and the drug abuse of today are some of the ways that Huxley’s dystopia could happen today (Macdonald 1-2).
In Huxley’s novel and in the film, The Truman Show, freedom is so manipulated and tainted that by todays standards it could not be considered freedom at all. In both Brave New World and The Truman Show it shows the negative effects this type of society can cause. In both the novel and film it shows how drug or substance abuse must be enforced to pacify, conditioning, and sex are used a means to control the subject or subjects but only lead to physical or mental deterioration of the subjects.
Both Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984 share the standard dystopian format of an individual versus an oppressive, or suppressive society, but they equally share their differences. While both societies are oppressive in their own rights, the societies uphold their communal beliefs in different fashions. The World State in Brave New World use non-violent means to control the population and to avoid uprisings. The use of hypnopedia, or sleep learning, along with vigorous conditioning throughout one’s life, the state can install rational propaganda against the population. This use of rational propaganda, or convincing a population that something is in the best interest for themselves and the distributor, ensures that obeying the societal expectations becomes a way of life and is something that can be upheld by the population alone with minimal government interjection. However, the state uses exiling away from civilization as punishment to those who go against the ideals of the society.
Both Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four directly exemplify the destructive effects of a totalitarian government hidden behind the mask of a seemingly utopian society. Although each dystopia is depicted in very different ways, many similarities are evident: for example, the oppression the citizens are forced to suffer. Unjust control, cruel treatment, and dramatic punishments are typical of each society. The threefold government of Nineteen Eighty-Four ensures constant, total control over all civilians through fear and ignorance. Brave New World’s “world controllers” act as Huxley’s version of the Inner Party, or the elite, ruling minority, and have the same responsibility.
Many people in the world today are suppressed and have freedoms taken away from them everyday, but everyone has the right to feel any emotion they want to. Imagine even having that freedom taken away, and so many more natural rights, all in the name of constant happiness. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is a science fiction novel that could also be classified as a piece of dystopian literature. It is set in a futuristic London, where there is a new government that has come into control called the World State. This new form of government came into power due to a Nine Years War that caused destruction unlike anyone had ever seen. This war forced the world to go to extreme measures in order to ensure nothing like that would ever happen again.
In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, a society is created with traditions in place about how to handle emotions. Solidarity Services are held in order to gather the people of the Brave New World and relive tensions or anxiety. Each participant in a Solidarity Service says, “I drink to my annihilation” (82) because they are in the midst of taking soma, the community’s everyday solution to discomfort or unpleasantness. As the name of the Service says, everything is done as a unit. “Ford, we are twelve; oh, make us one,” (82) As a community, they all take part in escaping from reality and the world’s small problems. By annihilating oneself, they are essentially eradicating their conscious personalities from society and taking away their individuality. Nevertheless, that is the goal of the community. “When the individual feels, the community reels”. (92) Feelings are not supposed to be endured, and if they are, soma is highly suggested to take care of that. When someone is experiencing emotion, the community turns upside down. The community emphasizes the importance of soma; in fact, it ...
A political work of literature consists of relating with the affairs of the government. The book Brave New World written by Aldous Huxley is a political work because this book is about how a dystopian called the World State; where the people are made in a specific way with special conditions. This makes the peoples’ personalities and their views of life to help their world to be peaceful. There is also the factor of how there are different social and economic groups. How they are managed is through the rate of production of people and their bringing up in the world. Lastly, this book is a political work because of the laws and actions people do to keep their dystopian peaceful and in order.
Aldous Huxley proposes the dangers of government control in the future that combines with an obsession with technology to completely control society in his novel Brave New World. Huxley tells a story about a future society living in London, England where pleasure and technological progress take priority and Henry Ford is honored as a god. The novel is written in a detached but omniscient voice that reveals the subconscious of its characters and contributes to the theme of the novel. The benevolent totalitarian state rules over its genetically engineered population by providing pleasure and conditioning the masses. The dystopia Aldous Huxley created can be compared to Charles Dickens’ Coketown in Hard Times, as the novels have similar themes of utilitarianism. In this Brave New World, human beings are machines made in factories to serve the state and ensure stability and progress.
In the novels, 1984, by George Orwell, and Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, there are many hidden messages that are meant to warn society. These novels show the struggles of having governments with full control and their methods of controlling people. The messages that Orwell and Huxley portray throughout their novels are that manipulation can be used to limit freedom, technology can be used to further control people, and governments will use fear to regulate thoughts and activities.
In the novel, Brave New World, Aldous Huxley wrote about his idea of a futuristic, manmade society. This future world is not one of a hopeful, or a perfect utopia; the opposite is true in this novel. It becomes clear early in this story that the created society is a disturbing dystopia where, technological advancement controls the citizens and strips them of their individuality. This future world focuses on the entire collective civilization whose importance is that of economy, industry and improving technology these are the things that society feels will make them happy. The individual has no place in the Brave New World, a world where science is used to enslave humans and